Abdullah Al Mamun
Have you been feeling awkward from auto-saved photos or videos on Messenger app on your iPhone or iPad? As all saved media is stored on Camera Roll, so sometimes, it can create an embarrassing situation, forcing you to delete those photos or videos manually.
The popular messaging apps on Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber have a default media saving setting, which will automatically download and save every received picture and video to the iPhone photo apps Camera Roll, which also goes to iCloud and other cloud services in no time.
While some users may like this feature, others may wish to change the auto-saving media behavior so that images and movies sent and received via Facebook, WhatsApp or Viber are not automatically saved to their iPhones. But that happens only whenever ‘auto save’ option is enabled on Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber, so you must disable that option by going to the media setting of the messenger app. If you are a total novice about it, then follow the steps given below on how to stop auto-saving photos on messages on iPhone and iPad. The trick works for both iOS8 and upcoming iOS9. It may also work for Android and Windows devices.
If you want to disable the automatic picture and video saving feature on Facebook, WhatsApp or Viber, the best way to make this change is through the application on the device directly. This is how you should do it:
For Facebook:
Launch Facebook Messenger, then tap on the “Settings” tab at the bottom of the app. In the Settings screen, choose “Photos & Camera”. Locate the toggle switch for “Save on Capture” and flip the switch to the OFF position and chose “Off” for “Download Videos” to disable the automatic saving of pictures and videos, or, turn it to the ON position to enable that feature. Tap back on Settings and then use Messenger as usual.
For WhatsApp:
Launch WhatsApp, then tap on the “Settings” tab at the bottom of the app
In the Settings screen, choose “Chats and Calls”. Locate the toggle switch for “Save Incoming Media” and flip the switch to the OFF position to disable the automatic saving of pictures and videos, or, turn it to the ON position to enable that feature Tap back on Settings and then use WhatsApp as usual.
For Viber:
Launch Viber, then tap on the “More” tab then “Settings” tab at the bottom of the app. In the Settings screen, choose “Media”. Locate the toggle switch for “Save to Gallery” and flip the switch to the OFF position to disable the automatic saving of pictures and videos, or, turn it to the ON position to enable that feature
Tap back on Settings and then use Viber as usual.
Now images and video will no longer be saved directly to the iPhone Camera Roll with your other pictures in Photos app. Note that you can still save pictures and videos from messenger app manually, but it no longer happens without your direct action.
In this way, with the media auto- saving turned off, Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber behave more like the Messages app in iOS, where the received pictures and videos are contained within the messaging client per thread, unless they are expressly saved to the local devices storage outside of the app.
Somewhat related, another option is to prevent Facebook, WhatsApp or Viber from downloading media when on a cellular connection. This can help to reduce bandwidth usage of a limited data plan.